Friday, November 13, 2009

Politically Correct? How about Correct, Period?

Amazingly, there is a news item out today that is headed "FBI: 10% of U.S. Mosques Preach Jihad." That report is false, and is yet another example of political correctness run amok.

All this talk about the religion of peace, all this talk about moderate Islam, is misguided, and factually wrong. Islam is a religion of war. The Koran, their holy book, was written as a battle manual, and it was used to enthrall most of the known world right after it was written. The actual number of Mosques that teach jihad is exactly one hundred percent of them, not ten. Jihad is dogma to them, as surely as confession is to a Catholic, a religious requirement, a basic tenet of his faith. No other religion teaches that they are at war with the rest of the world, and they will convert, enslave, or kill everybody living here on this planet. This becomes clear if you have the minimum understanding of the history of organized religion over the last three thousand years, and an ideology that allows you to see the truth when it is set before you.

In the beginning the priests would build an idol and a temple and get people to pay them for things like spiritual healing and to make the rains come, the crops grow. Well, the rain didn't always come, and each independent little idol or God had its own exploiters, therefore it was not centralized and thus, inefficient. In order to facilitate better control and to enable the accretion of more power, monotheism arose, in Egypt and other places. The Hebrews refined it and codified it. Their one God was pretty well uninvolved in the daily affairs of men, and His book, the Bible, was about their history, some prophesy, and rules of behavior. The priest class thrived under this new system, but some realized that they could do better, thus a group of them branched out with a new book, a New Testament, which built on, and incorporated the Bible as its preface. This time they improved the cost-benefit ratio, making heaven a goal everybody could strive to enter, and live out eternity with the most holy. Ten percent of all income was what they charged their believers. This turned out to become a much better business, but they could not attract the believers in the old system to join them, and they were lousy rules for recruiters for new members - missionaries were supposed to use persuasion instead of coercion. Then came Mo and his Koran, which was a more modern and far more effective manual for the priest class to make an even better living, which contained a major improvement.

That signal improvement was in directly seizing secular power, and personally leading the army. An army of believers, led by the priests. They moved the reward for supporting the priests into the next world, thus the believers needed to die to get into heaven. In this way the priests didn't have to deliver anything in this world, except leadership. They named their religion "Submission." In Arabic, that is "Islam."

The "Crusades" were a set of defensive wars that ultimately stopped the Muslim army at the gates of Vienna in 1683, and ran them out of Spain as well. This was the end of Muslim expansion by warfare. Since that time the priests of Islam have continued to teach world domination, and in the last eighty years their war against the rest of the world has really freshened, as they teach their children that Allah gave them oil to finance their victory.

This is not surmise, they say this stuff openly all the time. Check out the public statements of "mainstream" clergy in the pages of MEMRI, among other places. Mo wrote in his Koran that the world could be divided into two zones, the Dar al Islam, or the world of the believers, and Dar al Harb, the world of war. They have been teaching this to their children since the seventh century. They are on the march to the victory that Allah promised them. One hundred percent of Muslims believe that, if they keep on having lots of children and following Sharia, they can rule the world, even if it takes another hundred years. For most of them this is soon enough. A fair few of them get anxious though, and try to hurry things along. Like Major Hasan.

Major Hasan responded to his religious teaching and his faith, when he took a gun to kill as many of his comrades/enemies as possible, followed by suicide by cop, as his ticket to be home free in his whorehouse heaven with his seventy two raisins. I am sure that he is quite disappointed to still be alive. He is a perfect example of the jihadi terrorist. Now there are some who insist that he was sick, not hateful. Well, if Hasan is sick, so are all the other suicide bombers, but it the sickness of their society, not some special victim syndrome that affords him a free pass from his guilt. It is hate. Religious, murderous, hate. Pure and simple. And few, if any, of his coreligionists speak out in outrage.

Edmund Burke is supposed to have said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Or maybe they are not good men, but pious believers, following the precepts of their church.


[Update - Over at American Thinker, Amil Imani has a post up that complements this one. A good read.]

Labels: Islam

Posted 10:28 PM by Michael Gersh #

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Is Obama Speech Naive, or Islamist Perfidy?

An interesting analysis of Obama's words and seemingly intentional mistranslation of the Koran makes this observer wonder whether there is something sinister going on here. While the writer/translator tries mightily to sound fair minded, I have no such constraint. When Obama quotes Sura 9 in his speech in Cairo, are we not allowed to remember that he first learned that Sura in a Muslim school in Indonesia? That it could not be unknown to him that this is the very place in their holy book that all Muslims are bound by their prophet to kill all nonbelievers?

Now he does a similar thing in Fort Hood. While his words toward the dead and wounded sound the right tone, his denial of the clear motive the attacker acted under is enlightening. Military brass may have a need to downplay the crisis of political correctness in their ranks, but the president has no need to support the institution. He will, however, support the very devil if it would serve his interest to do so.

Are we allowed to discern the perfidy here, or are we bound to follow The Won into a world in which all evil is American, and all good comes from Allah?

Posted 10:43 AM by Michael Gersh #

Monday, November 02, 2009

Windows Seven

I am usually the last guy to upgrade to new software or hardware, but recently my wife bought a new computer with Windows 7 installed, so I had a chance to play around with it a bit. I must say that the program seems to work better than any Windows version I have ever used. This is just a first look, but for me, that is saying a lot. Windows 7 is no Ubuntu Linux, but for the guys in Redmond, this is something new - a program that seems to work right, right out of the box. Last time they did that was Word 5.0, back in the eighties.

I came late to the Windows party. I stayed with Dos 3.3 until everybody was using Windows 3.1, and I had no choice but to switch to it in the mid 1990s, right after the buggy Windows 95 came out. Now I use Widows XP. When I boot into Ubuntu - I have a dual boot system - I marvel at the precision of the program, the way that everything is easily controllable, even the very fact that everything IS controlled by the user. I HATE the way Windows does so much stuff "in the background" where you don't know what is going on.

My computer is always on, and sometimes I can see the little light that means traffic is going over the web start blinking spontaneously for no apparent reason, but with Windows XP I have no easy way to find out what is going on. If I have Linux up, not only can I easily find out what the traffic is, this never happens in the first place. But then I need easy access to all my Windows docs and apps, and Windows is familiar, so as a result of Windows' ease of use, I use Linux infrequently. Also, if I did not have my computer administration and troubleshooting department at hand (my teenage son) I would be daunted by all the understanding that I do not have about Ubuntu Linux, and my expert is not here most of the time during the day. Little thing called high school.

When they decided to make Windows idiot proof, they were thinking about me. But when my computer needs to stay on for a week, such as when I go on a business trip, I leave it running Ubuntu. That way it will absolutely, positively be up and working, and my VPN can access it. Windows XP could never last for a week without needing a cold boot.

I haven't really tested Windows 7, and I probably will wait to use it for a year or two, but what little I saw these last few days is encouraging. Maybe Redmond finally got something right. It has sure been a while since the last time they did that.

Posted 10:12 AM by Michael Gersh #

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Rich Whistling Past the Graveyard

Frank Rich, the former movie reviewer for the NYT, now the ponderously distinguished political analyst for the NYT, has come out with a remarkable piece of political spin. He has taken the fact that Dede Scozzafava has resigned her campaign so the more popular conservative candidate can have a better chance to beat the democrat, and spun it into unreality. His spin is more like whistling past the graveyard, as if claiming that the republicans are on the wrong track will put them on the approved path to permanent minority status. A bit of his prose:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama.

Obama is destroying himself, and when liberal republicans make way for honest conservatives to protect their district from democrat victory, is no paranoid cult. It sounds to me more like concerned Americans, willing to go the extra mile, even at the cost of their own careers, for the greater good. That is a good sign for America, and a black mark on the checkered record of Frank Rich.

Posted 8:30 AM by Michael Gersh #

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Five Hundred Posts

What a long strange trip it's been. Seven years, five hundred posts, and just getting started. There is plenty to talk about, considering the fact that we have a narcissist in the White house, clearly trying to take this great nation down a path that the rest of the civilized world is retreating from, having tasted these fruits, and found them bitter.

Even so, after 500 posts I feel that I have the right, and the need, for a little break. I will be back early in November. It's all good!

Posted 6:48 PM by Michael Gersh #

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Treasury Admits Cost of Cap & Tax will cost 1% of GDP

The Treasury Department has been forced to admit that the cost of Cap & Tax will cost 1% of GDP. In respomse to a FOIA request, Treasury submitted a redacted report on the costs. While the dollar amount was redacted, on page three of the .pdf file there is the admission "Exonomic costs will likely be on the order of 1% of GDP, making them equal in scale to all environmental regulations."

Labels: Eco-Fraud

Posted 1:57 AM by Michael Gersh #

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Health Care Plan Status

Posted 5:17 PM by Michael Gersh #

Obama Abandons Missile Shield, Picks Best Date

President announced today that it will not continue to build the missile defense system that president Bush promised would protect Europe from missile attack and Russia did not want built. Amazingly, Obama, showing the political deaf ear he has displayed since the moment his brilliant political campaign ended, picked possibly the worst possible day to announce this, the anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Poland.

While the official story of building the missile shield was that it would protect against Iranian missiles, it could be no secret that building defensive missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic would be even more protective of those nations. Thus, Russia was not pleased. Today, the Vodka is flowing in Moscow, as their dreams of reestablishing their hegemony over Eastern Europe got a big boost from their good friend Obama. Now, if Obama had a clue about how to get some mileage with Russia from this it might not be an entirely bad move, but the supine foreign policy of the current administration does not inspire confidence that they have just acquired a shot of competence.

Labels: Foreign Affairs

Posted 9:57 AM by Michael Gersh #

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fifteen in Congress Who Betray the Public's Trust

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is out today with its fifth annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress. Seven Republicans and eight Democrats comprise the list. They are:

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.)

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.)

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.)

Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.)

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.)

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.)

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W. Va.)

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.)

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)

Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.)

Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.)

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)

CREW's critieria? The congressmen and women "who have most egregiously betrayed the public’s trust."

Labels: Congress

Posted 10:19 AM by Michael Gersh #

Friday, September 11, 2009

Republicans for Sunstein

Cass Sunstein was confirmed by the senate yesterday, He was targeted by certain conservatives, notably Glenn Beck and right leaning bloggers, for statements made in his 2004 book and elsewhere, which reveal a man who believes we need a new Bill of Rights, that animals need access to the courts, and a strong stance in favor of gun control. On the other hand, he was in favor of the appointment of now Chief Justice John Roberts, and he is generally of a free market disposition.

His new position as the guy in the White House who reviews federal regulations seems to keep him away from gun control, and his advocacy of new rights, including rights to a job and higher prices for farmers also seem to be beyond his new brief. In any event the key vote in the senate was the cloture vote, where the democrat side needed 60 votes. For your reference, here is a list of the republicans who foted in favor of Cass Sunstein.

Republicans voting for cloture:
Bennett (R-UT)
Collins (R-ME)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Lugar (R-IN)
Snowe (R-ME)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Labels: politics

Posted 12:38 PM by Michael Gersh #

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Brazil, Soros, Get Billions

Sharp eyed news fans might have noticed that the Obama administration today gave Petrobras, the Brazil petroleum company and the worlds eleventh highest valued company, a commitment for two billion dollars to drill in deep water offshore from that country's coast. Even sharper eyes might have noticed that George Soros owns about one billion dollars of stock in Petrobras. Even more curious eyes would have noticed that, just days before Obama invested in the company, Soros announced that he had reduced his stake in Petrobras. But financially savvy readers might note that this was a move from common shares to preferred shares, which pay dividends. Thus George Soros upped the ante by putting himself in the revenue stream mere days before his good buddy Obama paved the way for much higher earnings.

I suppose it would be out of line for me to wonder why Obama would reverse course on his disdain for petroleum and support drilling, when he claims to want to stop using petroleum altogether. I guess that only wild eyed conservative wackos will draw any conclusions about possible collusion between the Obama administration and their benefactor, the principal funder of moveon.org. I must be stupid and evil to see any connection between these events. Not the first time, not the last.

Labels: Eco-Fraud, Obama, petroleum

Posted 7:58 AM by Michael Gersh #

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Inspiration

Not to be missed. Sit back, turn up the sound, and spend four minutes remembering why it's all worth it.

Labels: Tea Parties

Posted 9:56 PM by Michael Gersh #

Monday, August 17, 2009

Today's Washington Post has a thoughtful article advocating ending the drug war. Written by a couple of Law Enforcement Officers, it has an interesting angle. A police officer dies in the line of duty every other day, and stopping the futile and harmful War on (some) Drugs will reduce that tremendously. The war destroys communities. Stopping the war could create and save 77 billion dollars per year.

I have posted time after time that there is no constitutional basis for prohibition. Indeed, alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment, and another one for repeal. But this nation had much more respect for its founding document eighty years ago. The concluding paragraph sums it up well:

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

A free society can not long survive alienating large portions of its population. If Obama really wants to provide us with "change we can believe in," he should read this article, and ponder the consequences of inaction on his people.

Labels: drug policy

Posted 9:09 AM by Michael Gersh #

40 Reasons We Don't Need Firearms

1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, Detroit & Chicago cops need guns.

2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."

4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates, which have been declining since 1991.

5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.

6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.

7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.

8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.

9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense - give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).

10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.

11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seat belts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for internal medicine, a computer programmer for hard drive problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.

12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later, in 1917.

13. The National Guard, federally funded, with bases on federal land, using federally-owned weapons, vehicles, buildings and uniforms, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a "state" militia.

14. These phrases: "right of the people peaceably to assemble," "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people" all refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.

15. "The Constitution is strong and will never change." But we should ban and seize all guns thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to that Constitution.

16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense! Of course, the army has millions of them.

17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they aren't "military weapons'', but private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles'', because they are military weapons.

18. In spite of waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting, government forms, etc., guns today are too readily available, which is responsible for recent school shootings. In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, anyone could buy guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations, variety stores, Sears mail order, no waiting, no background check, no fingerprints, no government forms and there were no school shootings.

19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, but the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.

20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.

21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.

22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men but a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."

23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.

24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.

25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population supported owning slaves.

26. Any self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a "weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."

27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by because they can be trusted.

28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.

29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self- defense only justifies bare hands.

30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.

31. Charlton Heston, a movie actor as president of the NRA was a cheap lunatic who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, a movie actor as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.

32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger capacity pistol magazines than do "civilians" who must face criminals alone and therefore need less ammunition.

33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.

34. Police officers have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that private citizens can never hope to obtain.

35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self- protection because the police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the police are not responsible for their protection.

36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with cops, need a gun.

37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.

38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.

39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.

40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong hands." Guess what? You have the wrong hands.

Labels: 2nd Amendment

Posted 7:33 AM by Michael Gersh #

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Clinton's Big Prison Break

This is just too good. Bill Clinton went into the women's prison in North Korea to "interview" the two imprisoned "reporters" for Al Gore's Current news service. Excuse me, but isn't this just special? The wife, now Secretary of State, stays away while Bill "meets" with the two lovelies. The picture will come easily to anybody's mind - women in prison movie scene, unrepentant sinner, a wink to the guard so that Billy can get a lewinsky (or better) from the girls he's come to save... Some guys get all the breaks.

This has gotta be a Saturday Night Live skit. Can't you picture it? First scene on SNL. Bill Clinton on the phone, begging the person on the other side, "Please, please Al, let ME go! Who could do this better than I could? I'll bring 'em home with me, er, to you. I'll deal with Hilary, I swear!"

I had thought the story was a joke, but then I saw the link from CNN, and THEY are not playing this one for laughs. So I guess truth IS stranger than fiction... cuz I can't just make up material this good.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Hillary, Korea

Posted 11:02 AM by Michael Gersh #

Friday, July 31, 2009

Gold Ads and Advertisers Bug Me

Ok, I have just about had it with these Gold ads. After the last six months of hearing that, what with the bad economy, we need to invest in Gold, I had just about tuned them out. Now that there is a little economic news that is being taken as "Good News" the next wave of Gold Bugs attack - with the economy recovering, we need to invest in GOLD!!

Now, I don't listen to a lot of television or radio, but there is usually one playing near by, but even so, all the shows I watch on TV and everything I hear on radio is completely full of ads telling me to BUY GOLD!! Now, wait a minute...

Is there any other investment that advertises itself this way? Stock brokers, banks, car makers, etc. are all telling me to make my purchases with THEM. They don't say: "You really need a car. You are too stupid to know this, but a car is a really good way to get around. Buy a car today! By the way, please buy it from us." But the gold sellers have to convince you to buy their questionable product in the first place.

Don't get me wrong - I LIKE gold. I own a lot of it for the same reason I have a lot of ammunition - if our economy or even civilized society ever breaks down it will be a good thing to have. But as an investment it is about the worst thing there is. It goes up, it goes down. $300 one year, $1000 the next. But, as a metal, its value over time will definitely go down. That is the nature of things, and the lesson of history. Commodities like that are subject to a nasty boom/bust cycle. Price goes up, and the miners invest in more equipment and dig more holes, so supply goes up, therefore the price goes down. Gold is about one thou right now. This ad I just heard thought the listeners to be such stupid marks that it said that, the last time gold was a thousand, if we correct for inflation that would be two thousand dollars today! That does not mean it will go up to two thousand, it means that the value is declining over time, as supply increases and technology improves.

Now, for all I know gold will go the two grand, or even five. I buy lotto tickets too. But these vultures trying to convince people on limited incomes to spend their money on a commodity are just plain evil. Commodities trading is well known to be the most dangerous type of investing. but the gold bugs are trying to make some people believe that GOLD is in a category unto itself. That's fraud. That's nasty. I hate it.

Labels: Conspiracies

Posted 12:38 PM by Michael Gersh #

Friday, July 24, 2009

Fundamentally Dishonest

We can now see, if we remove our blinders, that the Obama administration is a fundamentally dishonest enterprise. From the stimulus to cap and tax to health care, they have not been honest on the most basic level - not about what they want, not about what their proposals contain. An interesting example can be found by examining their latest fraud, the Gates affair.

The Gates affair is, if truth be told, about how the power equation between citizens and police officers is horribly out of step with our American ideals, but race hustlers have made it into something else. The fundamental dishonesty is shown by the participation of the Obama administration in this story. Anyone can be dishonest, but Obama is guilty of findamental dishonesty. Let me show you what i mean.

Obama got himself elected by representing himself as something new in American politics, and something new in the life of Barack Obama. He represented himself as the "Post-Racial" candidate. That was supposed to mean that he was beyond race - that his father African genetic makeup was not an issue. A fundamental lie. How do we know this was an example of fundamental mendacity? We know from Obama's own words.

He was asked about this in Wednesday's presser. It has been revealed that the question was seeded by David Axelrod, and queued up to be the last question that Barry was asked. And he used this self-generated opportunity to make this an entoirely racial situation. He said that the cop was, at least "stupid" for not recognizing the superiority of Gates, and claimed that it was a racial incident. Yet any honest American knows that if you confront a cop in public, you will be in for a hard time. White, black, yellow, or green, tell a cop that you will have his job and you get a free transit to the hoosegow. We all know that. But Obama used this as an opportunity to harangue us all on racism. That is fundamentally dishonest, for the "post-racial" president.

Labels: Obama, racism

Posted 6:04 PM by Michael Gersh #

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Energy Follies

There is a lot of loose talk going around on alternative energy, with advocates saying we can produce all the energy we need with wind and solar. From what I understand, there is not enough power potential for all our energy needs to be supplied that way, unless nuclear is included. Even with a solar cell so efficient that has not been invented yet, we would need to completely cover Arizona and half of New Mexico with solar cells or mirrors to come close to our electrical needs that are currently covered with coal. That does nothing for the energy requirements of future electric cars.

Wind and solar-electric power suffers from being unreliable. Conventional power plants would need to remain online to cover the periods of little wind. Entire seasons suffer from far less wind than others. Also sufficient wind exists only is a few locations. We will need a new technology of power transmission, and an entire new electric transmission grid, to properly power the entire country from the few sites with large wind resources.

Two big problems remain, and they are concerned with the balancing of energy needs and environmental concerns. One is - If we cover the desert southwest with solar production, what happens to the little creatures of the desert? What about our pristine areas? Monument Valley anyone? Water plants do damage to the fish populations. What about the Salmon lobby? What about little fishies we don't even know about yet? And some eminent scientists have postulated that if we install enough wind farms to make a real dent in our power needs, the power, which will be extracted from the wind, might very well make a substantial change to surface winds, affecting weather or (gasp!) climate.

The second problem is that advocates of Wind, Water, and Solar power generation schemes forget that all three are truly Solar power. Climate on planet earth has always tended to change. If we do this stuff and the amount of insolation goes down, where will we be then?

Clearly, with unlimited power within any old molecule in the universe, we must include some form of nuclear power in any intelligent discussion of solving our energy needs while cutting down emissions. We don't need to wait for quantum energy generation to become available, or fusion. We have useful and proven nuclear fission technologies available right now. What we need is the political will to allow them. In the meantime, anyone who claims to believe that carbon dioxide is causing us problems but is against nuclear power is either not serious, or has a hidden agenda.

Labels: Eco-Fraud

Posted 3:48 PM by Michael Gersh #

Obama's Masters

Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Reverend Wright. A sorry and sordid bunch. We voted for a man who was sold to us as a centrist, and we got - well, we can all see what we got. There are conspiracy fans out there who believe that we are under the control of a secret cabal. I can not agree.

It is true that we arrived here in large measure due to a KGB plot that was kicked off by Stalin, before the KGB even existed. When McCarthy and Cohn got the commies kicked out of government the KGB started to subvert our system in another way. KGB defectors have testified to this. Yuri Bezmenov is only one of them, but since his YouTube video has been posted all over the web, many people know about him. In 1983 he predicted the entire Obama phenomenon. This has been a long time coming. All about co-opting the press and academe, Acorn and the rest, twenty five years ago.

But the Soviet empire is gone. The KGB is no more. This thing is not under central control. Many Americans have become leftists, especially the very rich and their charitable trusts. Banks and traders love having their partnership with a neo-fascist government also. But it is not a centralized conspiracy. It is a diffuse amalgam of people and groups with similar interests, bucked up by the usual assortment of special interests and useful idiots.

But the important thing to remember is not that we are subject to a movement the Soviet KGB hatched. The important thing is that most Americans have no idea that this is happening, and will assert their will if and when they get riled up. We are still a conservative country, and the only reason we have a Manchurian Candidate in The White House is that the media sold him as a centrist. But the bloom is coming off that rose.

The result of recent news, IMHO, is that more Americans will be drawn to take notice of what is happening. It is, after all, the voters and not the citizens that decide these matters. After all the hooplah last year in the campaign, the young and the blacks really didn't show up to vote. It was the moderates who delivered us into this deadly embrace. In a year and a half, we may see a big change in the congress. Unless and until illegal immigrants and Acorn take over the elections, there will still be time to stop this. If we turn aside those two threats, we can return to some semblance of normality.

BTW, I am not giving up on the Hispanic immigrants. Even if all twelve million illegals are given the vote, they didn't come here for welfare - they came here for opportunity. Granting them the franchise may well backfire on the left. That is why some republicans favor making them at home here. While I don't agree with that, I can see that it might not be the worst outcome. I would much rather have this turn into a half Spanish nation than a Muslim one.

Labels: Conspiracies, Obama

Posted 12:49 AM by Michael Gersh #

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Car Czar Quits, Union Man Replaces Him

Announced today is the news that Steve Rattner, former investment banker who has led president Obama’s auto task force during the takeover of GM and the bankruptcy of Chrysler, has decided to quit his job. The Obama administration, not missing a beat, has slipped a union guy, Ron Bloom, in as his replacement.

Consistent with Obama's use of so-called "Czars" to obfuscate the links between the industries involved and the administration's machinations, we know very little about Bloom, but we are just now learning about the federal investigation into Rattner. Something was alleged about kickbacks sought by officials linked to government pension plans from Rattner's "former" venture capital firm:

Mr Rattner's brief tenure was not without controversy. The White House was accused of sidestepping the Senate's scrutiny of administration nominees by naming him a mere member of a taskforce - rather than the touted "car czar" - even though he assumed charge of one of the biggest state interventions in US industry.

After his move to Washington, his former private equity firm Quadrangle was caught up in an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into alleged kickbacks sought by people linked to the New York state comptroller's office.

Nothing to see here, just move along...

Labels: Obamanomics

Posted 12:02 AM by Michael Gersh #

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